


A Little Bit of Human Touch

by Jaune_Chat



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Dirty Talk, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Frottage, M/M, New Erogenous Zones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-25
Updated: 2014-09-25
Packaged: 2018-02-18 18:24:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2357759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaune_Chat/pseuds/Jaune_Chat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky got Tony to help him fix the sensitivity problem in his metal arm, but the first real sensation he’s felt there in seventy years is rather… intense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Bit of Human Touch

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a [prompt at avengerkink](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/19023.html?thread=45126223#t45126223). Title taken from Bruce Springsteen's song, "Human Touch."

“This is… way more advanced than I thought. And I don’t say that lightly.”

Bucky didn’t shrug, because that would disrupt exactly what Stark was trying to do, but made a vague gesture with his flesh hand.

“Because if this is the original model…?” Stark trailed off delicately.

“Yes, unless they did something when I was under. Looks the same, anyway,” he said. “Did field repairs a couple times and never noticed any major changes.” The thought didn’t bring the bitterness it once might have; Bucky had done a lot of sorting of seventy years of brainwashed slavery, separating the technique and skills they’d put in him from the casual cruelty, lies, and abuse. It wasn’t perfect, but at least it was better than hiding from it all, waiting to erupt like a metal-filled volcano whenever something brushed on a trigger.

“If it is, then it was really done well.”

Bucky knew Stark just enough to know that wasn’t nearly all he wanted to say. Stark tended to have verbal diarrhea, spouting off eight million things at once and expecting you to sort out what was relevant. But apparently he’d figured out that singing the unfettered praises of Zola in Bucky’s presence was less that politic.

“Well?” Bucky asked, when the silence dragged on.

For an answer, Stark brought up a hologram of the metal arm and its attachment to Bucky’s body, pointing at something to make little threads of light shine. There was metal laced through Bucky’s entire bone structure, and reinforcement of the muscles, tendons, and ligaments just so the metal arm wouldn’t rip off at the shoulder whenever Bucky exerted his strength. With the enhancements to his body’s systems from Zola and Schmidt’s version of the serum, that had left him a hell of a lot tougher than standard stock human. But Bucky wanted to know if there was any way to feel any of that old human touch again. The metal arm registered some pressure, and Bucky knew where it was, but there was no real sensation of gentle touch, hot, cold, or pain. It felt like just another weapon in his arsenal sometimes, instead of part of his body.

“You’ve got full connectivity, full integration. Your nerves are fully knitted into the connectors, of which there are a shit-ton, so you should be feeling everything and then some. But.” Stark whirled the hologram around and enlarged one area, pointing at a small series of small circuits. “These are selective shut-offs, and nearly all of them are engaged. I unlock them, flip the switches, no more numb arm.”

Bucky stared at the hologram, jaw dropping a little. He’d been expecting Stark to say that they’d severed the nerves or that there was nothing to salvage. Instead, it sounded like they’d had everything in place to make him feel human, and had just _turned it off_ instead. Bucky clenched his jaw and metal hand, making the hologram dance and warp before he stilled himself.

 _They’re about as dead and gone as they can be without you dragging them in front of the Devil yourself,_ he reminded himself, and shook off the rage, putting it back into its box for later.

“I’m good,” he said, but Stark was already taking a bunch of delicate-looking tools from the good-natured one-armed robot that he treated like a favorite dog. A favorite dog with the brains of a stupid rock. Bucky was sort of fond of the thing; it reminded him of Tin, a neighborhood mutt so called because he didn’t have enough brains to rattle around inside a tin can. He wondered what sort of treats you brought a robot, and resolved to find out someday soon.

“Ok, gonna open this up…”

Bucky didn’t change expression when he felt the odd release of pressure that came from anyone doing maintenance on the arm, but watched with fascination as Stark reached deep, deep inside with very tiny tools. There was a faint sense of movement in there (a bizarre feeling that had no analogue with his flesh arm), and then seven small _pops_. Stark pulled the tools out and sealed the arm back up with a very smug smile on his face.

“Give it a little while to reboot everything, and the first few hours might be kinda intense as you get used to having feeling again, but it should be good to go,” he said. And held up a finger as Bucky went to open up his mouth. “And yes, I’ll show you how to do yourself,” he said, and Bucky didn’t even roll his eyes at the innuendo. Because when the Avengers went out, he wanted every weapon in his arsenal. But at home, with Steve… he just wanted to feel a little more human. Just for a while.

\--

It was like having a sore tooth. Or it might have been, if Bucky hadn’t learned absolute patience (the circumstances had been the stuff his nightmares were made of, but he wasn’t above co-opting the results sometimes). Because he forced himself to _not_ probe at his arm every five seconds, waiting for results, because being seen caressing his arm, even just by JARVIS, felt particularly weird.

So he waited, watching TV to check things off of his and Steve’s list, occasionally getting something like pins-and-needles as it felt like his skin was finally waking up over there. At three hours after he’d left Stark’s workshop, he figured it was time for testing. Lightly, he ran a finger over the smooth plates of his inner forearm.

And nearly came on the spot.

The feeling was like someone had just licked their way up his nerves and hit buttons he didn’t know he had, like all the pleasure he hadn’t been able to feel in seventy years had concentrated on his simple touch. His dick was urgently erect from the sensation, and Bucky felt his breathing and pulse accelerate, sweat starting on his temples. He shuddered out two breaths and touched himself again, just a light touch on the back of his forearm, making a noise like a dying animal deep in his throat as he writhed on the sofa, lost in the feeling of pleasure radiating out from the formerly numb metal.

Of course, that was the moment the elevator opened and Steve stepped out. He was only surprised for a split second before rushing to Bucky’s side, checking him over for injury, looking into his eyes to see if he was still in the here and now. 

“Bucky?” he asked, a moment away from finding one of their Stark-patented lock-down cuffs.

“Good, good, I’m so, so good,” Bucky gasped out, hips pumping at the air when he inadvertently brushed his arm against the sofa cushion and set off another wave of visceral pleasure. Steve looked him up and down, and blushed a bit before firming his jaw.

“What happened? Sex pollen? Old trigger?”

Bucky threw back his head and laughed, wild and with abandon he probably hadn’t in many, many decades, and Steve relaxed slightly.

“God, no. Sex pollen, geez, where did you get that idea?” He didn’t bother to mention any triggers. He’d been Hydra’s weapon, not their toy, and anyone found trying to put something like _that_ in him would probably have been executed on the spot.

“It’s more common than you think and don’t ask me how I know that.”

Bucky resolved to ask anyway sometime when he wasn’t in the throes of sensory overload.

“Stark. It was Stark, he reopened the nerve blocks on the metal arm and it just feels…”

Steve’s eyes widened and he leaned down to run a fingertip over the back of Bucky’s hand. Bucky could only moan and try to press up against Steve’s too-distant body. “Don’t stop, Steve.” That came out in a harsh voice, and Bucky abruptly softened his tone from the commanding bark with an added, “Please…”

“Are you sure?” Steve withdrew from touching the smooth metal plates and instead touched his fingers to the back of Bucky’s right hand. “I don’t want to…” He trailed off, and Bucky already knew the conversation they would have, and Steve did too, so they skipped right to the end. Steve didn’t want to take advantage of Bucky when he wasn’t in his right mind, and they’d done a lot of tip-toeing around each other in the beginning, when he barely had a mind to be right _in_. Bucky knew what he had to say to convince him, and Steve knew he had to take Bucky’s sincere word.

Bucky held the metal arm still, away from any stimulation, and used his warm right hand to pull Steve into a heated kiss. “I want you.” Another kiss, harder, fingers trailing up to run through Steve’s hair. “I haven’t felt much of anything from that arm for so long.” Deeper, adding an open-mouthed moan and a tease along the seam of Steve’s lips with his tongue. “I want you to touch me. I want you to be the first to touch me there because you want to make me feel good.” Steve opened up to him, a gorgeous noise coming from the depths of his chest, and Bucky sucked gently at Steve’s tongue and lips for a moment before pulling back. “I wanna come for you.”

That was all the sincerity Steve could stand to hear without blowing a gasket, and he finally ran those long, clever fingers down the swells of the articulated metal. Bucky’s head went back and his eyes rolled up as his greedy, starved nerve endings rewarded the gentle touch with a feeling like personalized sex-fireworks were going off inside what had formerly been a mostly numb weapon at his side. His cock was so, so hard, and he thrust up again, desperate for something, anything else. Steve leaned in closer, pressing one muscular thigh between Bucky’s legs, and he ground against it gratefully, making Steve suck in air in surprise and pleasure.

“You want to come like this?” Steve whispered in his ear, running a finger from shoulder to fingertip, and making Bucky arch like a bow at the feeling that awoke in him. “Bucky, you want to come just like this?”

Falling apart at Steve’s touch, rutting against Steve’s body, on a such a hair-trigger of sensation it was like being a kid again, back before everything had happened.

“Yeah,” he breathed out, chest heaving, head lolling back. “Yeah, want to. Won’t be this sensitive all the time. Want you to get first dibs.”

Steve got a wickedly determined look on his face. He took another step forward, firmly pressing his thigh between Bucky’s legs, and leaned over him with both hands free, his long artist’s fingers descending to trace, touch, and torment every inch of metal. Bucky’s hips moved of their own accord as wave after wave of explosive bliss flowed from his left side. He came thirty seconds after Steve wrapped his hands around his unyielding wrist, but barely even paused to gasp for breath as Steve’s fingers danced over his metallic skin, wringing new noises out of Bucky as he learned and then played him like an instrument. It was sweet fire, playful touch, satisfying torment, and Bucky lost himself to it, abandoning himself to laughter punctuated by heartfelt moans as he rutted and writhed. He opened his eyes occasionally, encouraged by the awe on Steve’s face as he watched Bucky’s body react to his caresses, and felt himself give up yet another orgasm to Steve’s wanton fingers.

Bucky flopped back with a gasp as Steve finally left off touching him a long time later, almost too spent to move. He lazily kissed Steve back, using what strength remained his lips and tongue to give Steve a thoroughly comprehensive “thank you.” He could feel how hard Steve was, pressed against his stomach, and lifted his warm right hand to subtly encourage Steve to rub himself off against Bucky’s body, wanting to give him a fraction of the pleasure he’d just received.

Steve lasted all of three and a half seconds, and Bucky didn’t blame him a bit.

“That was…” Steve finally managed. He sounded awed, and wrecked, and Bucky was definitely going to have to send Stark a thank-you note.

“Yeah,” Bucky said slowly, drawing out the word into several syllables. He carefully, at a glacial pace, raised the metal arm, and touched Steve’s head. He could feel the individual strands against the shiny alloy fingers, soft and sleek and as crisp a sensation he’d ever felt with his original flesh. Chuckling, Bucky pulled Steve even closer, reveling in the feel of him with both arms as they relaxed together. 

It wasn’t quite the original thing, but maybe, in some ways, this was even better.


End file.
